Abstract

Massage is often used to reduce psychological distress or to improve local circulation, but, the effects of massage are neither stable nor consistent. The purpose of this study was to evaluate effects of foot-massage on mood and autonomic nervous system in highly stressed students, and the interaction with personality. We selected highly stressed students by scores of daily hassles scale and profile of mood states (POMS). We employed POMS and visual analogue scale to assess mood, and employed heart rate variability, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), and baroreflex sensitivity to assess autonomic nervous function. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed increase of vigor and comfortableness, and decrease of diastolic BP after foot-massage. To evaluate the interaction with personality, repeated measures ANOVA was applied to two groups (low- and high-) divided by the score of clinical scale of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). High-Pa group (considered to be sensitive in human relationships) showed significant decrease of tension-anxiety after the massage,but low-Pa did not. Low-Si group (considered to be socially active) showed significant decrease of angerhostility and fatigue after the massage, but high-Si did not. And low-Ma group (considered to be temperate and adjusting slowly) showed remarkable decrease of diastolic BP after the massage, but high-Ma did not. These results suggest that foot-massage would generally raise vigor and comfortableness, and decrease diastolic BP, however, the effects would be different from person to person, and beneficial effects to reduce tension-anxiety, anger-hostility and fatigue can be expected dependent on their personality.